Cruising my 1995 Catalina 42 MK II sailboat with my cat XO, the good, the bad, and the ugly of the open ocean world cruising life.

Monday, December 5, 2016

Steering Woes

When crossing the Atlantic we lost our wheel steering. Investigation showed that the poorly engineered turning blocks had given way. After tightening the cables once again this morning and disassembling the steering pedestal we discovered that the turning block unit had failed again. We need to further disassemble the system to get to the broken part. Edison has apparently reengineered the part (at a cost of $400 US) so hopefully once we get the part and reassemble it it will last more than a couple of years. It is a shame that we did not see this in Vuda Point when we had it all apart. I think it is additional damage from the beating Reboot took in the thunderstorm. Oh well. At least we can steer with the autopilot.